读书记录（2004，女）

cettevie

Mysterious Nature

BY Melissa Mcdaniel

        Thousands of reindeer skeletons were strewn about.
Strew: spread by scattering

        A thick carpet of lichens(LYE-kens) covers much of the island.
Lichen, mosslike plants that grow on rocks and trees.

        Then the bleak land bursts into a rainbow of color.
Bleak, offering little or no hope; unpleasantly cold and damp

        Seabirds such as puffins, murres, and fulmars nest on the island’s high cliffs.
Murre: black and white diving bird of northern sea
Fulmar: heavy short-tailed oceanic bird of polar regions

        Small, mouse-like voles dig holes for their nests.
Vole, a mouselike animal.

        The Coast Guard crew who lived on St. Matthew Island were cut off from the rest of the world. They had been plunked down in the middle of the cold ocean. What if there were a long stretch of bad weather and supply ships could not reach the island?
Plunk: drop steeply, set down with or as if with a noise
A long stretch of weather

        By this time this island was littered with skeletons.
Littered, scattered about

        Then winter came. Deep snow blanketed the ground.

        The reindeer could graze only in places where the wind had blown most of the snow away.
Graze: feed as in a meadow or pasture

        The reindeer had already trampled or overgrazed these areas.
Trample: tread or stomp heavily or roughly

        The huge herd of reindeer didn’t have nearly enough food. To top it off, the winter of 1963-64 was extremely cold. The reindeer were already weak from lack of food. The cold finished them off.
Herd: A group of cattle or sheep or other domestic mammals all of the same kind that are herded by humans; a group of wild mammals of one species that remain together.

        The reindeer could not no longer breed. In the 1980s, the last of the reindeer of St. Matthew Island died off.

        How about typhoons? These deadly storms sometimes smack Guam with wind and rain.
Smack: deliver a hard blow to

        The bird fossils that David discovered were inside owl pellets. These pellets are little balls of bone, feathers, and fur that owls spit up after eating birds and other animals.

        A low rumble builds into a deafening roar.
Rumble: a loud low dull continuous noise

        Because they were eating lots of Pollock instead of herring or sand lance.
Pollock: 鳕鱼，lean white fish of North Atlantic fish
Herring, 青鱼
Sand lance: very small silvery eellike schooling fishes that burrow into sandy beaches. 玉筋鱼

petitrois

她和L下午表演英语短剧，昨晚还为此做花，她先在白纸上画出花朵，涂色，然后剪下来。这时她对我说，妈妈，你攒下来的Cardboard有用了。她把纸板剪下来一细条，粘在自己做的花的背后，把细条正反涂成绿色。她告诉我把纸板做的花茎用透明胶带粘在台子上，“我假装用力一拔，把花摘下来”。

她的这个创意真的很创意，但我唯恐现场的台子不好粘。昨天只做了5朵，因为时间太晚。今天去4层比赛现场一看，以前的地面成了泡沫塑料垫子，红兮兮的，很不衬她做的那么漂亮的花。和她商量好，仍是撒在上面，她自己布置位置，把我放好的重新摆放。

M出来时跟我说这些花做的很好，我说孩子总是创意不断。

一个下午的比赛，她和L是最出彩的。